Linked List: April 7, 2011

Thursday, 7 April 2011

Why Do Apps From the Same Company Look Worse on Android Than on iPhone? ★

Coincidence, I’m sure.

See also: Jim Coudal’s new Stuff About Terrence Malick archive. (Nice Coudal home page, too.)

Rich Jaroslovsky reviews Acer’s new dual-14-inch, six-pound touchscreen Windows notebook:

The biggest drawback is the battery. The two touch screens suck power like a vacuum cleaner, and even Acer’s claim of three hours on a full charge may be on the high side if you’ve got the screens set to bright and are connected to a Wi-Fi network.

Sounds like something from a company that just shitcanned their CEO.

Facebook’s Open Compute Project ★

Facebook is open sourcing their server and data center information, and calling it the Open Compute Project.

It’d be interesting to compare the efficiency and design of Facebook’s data center servers with Google’s — anyone have a link to Google’s open source server and data center info?

Pow ★

New from 37signals: Pow, an open-source web server for Mac OS X, for easy local deployment of Rails and Rack web apps.

One of the things I love about this is how nicely packaged the project is. The website is gorgeous (be sure to take a look at it on your iPhone, too), the screencast gives you the basic gist of installation and usage, and the documentation is well-written.

Clorox Lets Employees Choose Their Phone ★

Lucas Mearian, reporting for Computerworld on Clorox CIO Ralph Loura’s keynote speech at the SNW conference:

Loura so far has replaced 6,000 desktop and tower computers with lightweight HP laptops, and got rid of company-issued Blackberries while letting workers choose between an iPhone or Android or Window Phone 7-powered smartphone. The company has issued 2,000 smartphones, 92% of which are iPhones. About 6% of the smartphones chosen were Android-based while 2% were Windows Phone 7 devices.

Recipe for Baked WordPress ★

Justin Williams:

Making your WordPress site Fireball-proof is not hard and anyone who can’t find the minimal amount of time to do it probably shouldn’t be self-hosting in the first place.

The Talk Show, Episode 37 ★

Another episode of America’s favorite podcast. Topics include Fred Wilson’s “develop for Android first” advice, Amazon’s potential role in the Android landscape, and grown men in bathtubs.

Brought to you by two fine sponsors: FreshBooks and MailChimp.

Khoi Vinh on The Daily ★

Khoi Vinh:

To me, The Daily is a near perfect realization of exactly the idea that occurs to print editors every single time they get their hands on digital media for the first time, regardless of what the underlying technology might be: “Let’s make it just like what we know so well in print.” As a result I found it sadly lifeless and lacking in urgency.

Skyhook Wireless on Android’s Openness ★

Keep Skyhook Wireless’s lawsuit against Google in mind when considering Andy Rubin’s protestations regarding Android’s openness:

In complete disregard of its common-law and statutory obligations, and in direct opposition to its public messaging encouraging open innovation, Google wielded its control over the Android operating system, as well as other Google mobile applications such as Google Maps, to force device manufacturers to use its technology rather than that of Skyhook, to terminate contractual obligations with Skyhook, and to otherwise force device manufacturers to sacrifice superior end user experience with Skyhook by threatening directly or indirectly to deny timely and equal access to evolving versions of the Android operating system and other Google mobile applications.

Put another way, there is something called “Android” that truly is open source, in the “take this and do what you want with it under this standard open source license” way. But that “Android” doesn’t include all sorts of things that we, as users, think of as being part of Android — things like Google Maps, Gmail, Android Market, etc. (and you can’t even call something based on this “Android” unless Google permits you to). None of those things are open in any sense of the word, but all of them are essential aspects of any consumer phone or tablet running Android.

Andy Rubin on Android’s Openness ★

Andy Rubin:

Recently, there’s been a lot of misinformation in the press about Android and Google’s role in supporting the ecosystem.

Where by “a lot”, I think he’s mostly responding to this piece for Businessweek by Ashlee Vance and Peter Burrows.

Our approach remains unchanged: there are no lock-downs or restrictions against customizing UIs.

But that’s not quite a rebuttal of what the Businessweek story reported. From Businessweek, emphasis added:

There will be no more willy-nilly tweaks to the software. No more partnerships formed outside of Google’s purview. From now on, companies hoping to receive early access to Google’s most up-to-date software will need approval of their plans. And they will seek that approval from Andy Rubin, the head of Google’s Android group.

As Jason Kincaid writes at AOL/TechCrunch:

The key words here are “early access”. Yes, as Rubin says, manufacturers can still access the Android code once it’s released and the same old rules apply, but there’s no doubt that Google is giving preferential treatment to certain carriers and hardware manufacturers in return for their cooperation.

And, as the Businessweek article points out, there’s a strong incentive to get first dibs on a new version of Android. You’re first to market, you get loads of press coverage, and so on. Google can dangle this carrot, and then ask for restrictions that go well beyond what it typically requires.